BOOK REVIEWS
Telling Bible Stories.By Mrs. Louise Seymour Houghton; Scribners.
If, as we believe, the story is one of the best ways to reach and nourish the child’s inner spiritual being, then we must go to the greatest source of spiritual stories, the Bible. To those who have been imbued with modern thought, science and education, and yet feel the wonderful power and value of the Bible, hardly knowing how to meet conditions as they exist, Mrs. Louise Seymour Houghton’s book, “Telling Bible Stories,” will come as a welcome supply to a real need. She points out how the literal accuracy takes care of itself, if the truth underlying goes to the child’s heart. The book is for adults, leading them to analyze the stories and get at the real meaning, and with that knowledge to construct his own story to suit the needs of the child from three years of age to the adult period. It recognizes the child’s growing knowledge of history, science, geography, myth, fable, poetry, etc., and yet points out, however valuable and interesting this is, that the Bible has this illuminating difference, that it is saturated with God consciousness.
Pearl Carpenter.
How to Tell Stories to Children.By Sara Cone Bryant; Houghton, Mifflin Co.,1905; pp. vii, 260. $1.00
This book is intended primarily for the teachers of the kindergarten and of the primary and intermediate grades. It opens with an introduction on story telling in general, which is followed by chapters successively on the purpose of story-telling in the school; selection of stories to tell; adaptation of stories for telling; how to tell the story; and some specific schoolroom uses. The second half of the book is devoted to 32 selected stories arranged in three groups,—one for the kindergarten and grade I, and one for grades II and III, and one for grades IV and V. The book closes with a bibliography for the story teller, which must prove to be a veritable gold mine for the teacher and parent and is easily one of the most helpful chapters in the book. As a sample of the good things the book contains, we reproduce elsewhere in this number of theStory Hourone of the stories from the third group entitled, “Arthur and the Sword.”
W. C. R.